Relationships and Community on World Christianity

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Sacred Space: Lessons from Ethiopia’s Church Forests

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Too Busy for God? American work culture is all-pervasive. For many members of your congregation, it can be a real fight to get actual time off—and cell phones and the internet has made it possible to...

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Mark A. Noll

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Today more Christian workers from Brazil are active in cross-cultural ministry outside their homelands than from Britain or from Canada. More than 10,000 foreign Christian workers are today laboring i...

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The Power of the Worldwide Church

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Gerald L. Sittser

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Scripture

1 Corinthians 12:12-14, 1 Corinthians 12:27, Isaiah 43:2, 1 John 4:7, Romans 12:5, James 5:14-15

It is a phone call no parent wants to receive. “Jerry,” Bethany said, “Catherine’s had a little accident.” “Accident! How bad?” “She’s going to be okay. You want to talk to her? We’re in a kind of am...

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Author

D. T. Niles

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Scripture

1 Corinthians 15:8

Christianity is one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread.

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The Original Sin of Racism

Author

Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove

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Racism

The original sin of racism in America began with a deeply flawed and demonic notion that shaped this nations development. Bad science claimed that black bodies were biologically deficient, then extrap...

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A Short History of World Religions in America (other than Christianity)

Author

Barbara Brown Taylor

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Scripture

Isaiah 56:6-7, Ruth 1:16-17, 1 Kings 8:41-43, Acts 2:5-6, Ephesians 2:14-15, Psalm 22:27

By many accounts the first Muslim in America was Estevancio of Azamor, a Moroccan guide for a Spanish expedition in 1528 that landed in Florida. A couple of centuries later, as many as a third of the ...

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Author

John R. W. Stott

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We must be global Christians with a global vision because our God is a global God.

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Emmanuel Katongole and Chris Rice

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The problem with individualistic Christianity is what we call “reconciliation without memory,” an approach that ignores the wounds of the world and proclaims peace where there is no peace (see Jer 8:1...

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The Beatitudes: An Antidote to Superficial Christianity

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Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

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The Beatitudes

This blog post started as the introduction to a book review (details below), but I rather quickly realized I had two posts on my hands, not one: There are two quotes about the beatitudes that I lov...

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A Little Girl and The Founding of World Vision

Author

Soong-Chan Rah

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Scripture

Matthew 25:35-40, James 1:19-27, Luke 10:33-37, John 21:15-17, 1 John 3:17-18, Ruth 2:8-12, Acts 9:36-42, 1 Corinthians 13:1-13, Luke 6:38

In 1947 huge crowds came to hear a thirty-two-year-old Californian preach at mass evangelistic rallies throughout China. Although Bob Pierce had no knowledge of Chinese language or culture, his messag...

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MLK Day Prayers for Church Services: Liturgy & Sermon Resources

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

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Scripture

Micah 6:8, Amos 5:24, Isaiah 1:17, Galatians 3:28, James 2:1, Ephesians 2:14

Updated for 2026. January 19, 2026 is Martin Luther King Jr. Day— the only U.S. national holiday commemorating a pastor. Under his leadership, non-violent civil rights advocacy achieved leaps f...

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Mission is Messy (Or, Why I Drank an Energy Drink at 7 in the Evening)

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Bradley Long

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I knew I'd pay for it later, but I drank it anyway. Have you had one of those energy drinks? The ones that have lots of caffeine and other ingredients meant to keep you awake? I don’t recommend t...

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Author

C. S. Lewis

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Scripture

Luke 18:13-14, Romans 5:8, Mark 2:17, 1 John 1:8-10, Isaiah 53:6, Jeremiah 17:9, Romans 3:23

A recovery of the old sense of sin is essential to Christianity. Christ takes it for granted that men are bad. Until we really feel this assumption of His to be true, though we are part of the world H...

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Thomas Aquinas on Peter’s Wealth

Author

Jake Meador

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Scripture

Acts 3:null

An old joke can sum up the failure nicely: It’s said that Thomas Aquinas was once brought into a great city where he was to meet the pope. He saw huge churches, clerics in ornate garb, and great armie...

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The Story of Amazing Grace

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The Pastor's Workshop

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John Newton authored one of the most beloved hymns for English-speaking black Christians in the world, yet he spent his early life transporting African slaves to the New World. He was born in 1725, w...

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Gentleness: The Indespensable Trait of True Christians

Author

Ray Ortlund

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Gentleness

Scripture

Matthew 11:29

One of Christianity’s most brilliant theologians, Jonathan Edwards, taught us that gentleness—he called it “a lamblike, dovelike spirit”—is not an optional extra but instead is “the true and distingui...

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Author

Michael Horton

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American Christianity is a story of perpetual upheavals in churches and individual lives. Starting with the extraordinary conversion experience, our lives are motivated by a constant expectation for t...

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The Shock-Value of Attending American MegaChurches for Third-World Missionary Kids

Author

Neil Cole

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Scripture

1 Samuel 16:7, Amos 5:21-24 , Isaiah 1:11-17, John 4:21-24, Matthew 18:20, Psalm 95:6-7

A missionary family who has started organic churches in some of the most dangerous fields in the world once returned to the states for furlough. On the first Sunday back, they visited a large Baptist ...

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Author

Ron Sider

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Evangelical Christians are as likely to embrace lifestyles every bit as hedonistic, materialistic, self-centered, and sexually immoral as the world in general.”

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Inspired by Psalm 46

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

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Scripture

Psalm 46:null

God is our safe space, our hiding place, a very present help in times of trouble. God is our safety, we will not fear! The mountains shake, the oceans roar, the nations rage, the world changes. ...

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One of the gravest dangers to the Christian faith

Author

Alan Paton

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Scripture

Exodus 5:1-21, 1 Samuel 8:4-22, Isaiah 1:10-17 , Matthew 23:23-28 , Galatians 3:26-29, Psalm 146:3-9

One of the gravest dangers to the Christian faith is its wholesale appropriation of the larger culture. When this happens, the citizens of those places cannot recognize the difference between their cu...

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Author

Craig Blomberg

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Scripture

Matthew 28:18-20, Acts 1:8, Acts 10:34-35, Galatians 3:28, Romans 1:16, John 4:21-24, Psalm 22:27-28

[Speaking of the early church] A cosmopolitan spirit grew, particularly in the cities, that transcended national barriers. Old tribal distinctions and identities were breaking down, leaving people rip...

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Inviting Jesus to Tea

Author

Bradley Long

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Scripture

Romans 10:14-15, John 17:20-21, Mark 16:15, Acts 1:8, Matthew 28:16-20

A Frontier Fellowship mobilizer once met a Chinese monk while leading a vision trip. Through a translator she said to him, “We are all followers of Jesus. Do you know Jesus?” The friendly monk replie...

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Author

E. Stanley Jones

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The Indian is making an amazing discovery, namely that Christianity and Jesus are not the same - that they may have Jesus without the system that has been built up around Him in the West.

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Author

Tony Campolo

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If we were to set out to establish a religion in polar opposition to the Beatitudes Jesus taught, it would look strikingly similar to the pop Christianity that has taken over the airwaves of North Ame...

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Cultural Diversity: Baked into the Early Church

Author

Andrew Walls

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Scripture

Acts 15:null, 1 Corinthians 12:12-13, Ephesians 2:14-16, 1 Corinthians 9:19-22, Titus 2:11-14

Cultural diversity was built into the Christian faith…in Acts 15, which declared that the new gentile Christians didn’t have to enter Jewish culture…. The converts had to work out…a Hellenistic way of...

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Quarreling Yesterday & Today

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Tim Muehlhoff & Richard Langer

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In Paul’s day the church quarreled over the Jewish law and over genealogies, over meat sacrificed to idols and sabbath practices, and over favoritism shown to the rich patrons and negligence shown to ...

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Author

Henry Ward Beecher

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A Christianity which will not help those who are struggling from the bottom to the top of society, needs another Christ to die for it.

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Author

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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Scripture

1 John 1:7, James 5:16, Matthew 18:20, John 15:12-14, Hebrews 10:19-25, 1 Peter 2:9-10, 1 Corinthians 12:25-27, Ephesians 4:1-6, Romans 12:2-8, Galatians 6:1-2, Acts 2:42-47, Colossians 3:11-17, 1 Corinthians 12:12-20, Psalm 133:1, John 13:34-35

Christian community means community through Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ. There is no Christian community that is more than this, and none that is less than this.

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